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News from the Library of Congress

Contact: Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940

October 31, 2000

MEDIA ADVISORY
Thomas Jefferson Exhibition Extended to Nov. 16

Jefferson's Library Will Remain on View Through
the Summer of 2001

The Library's major Bicentennial exhibition on
Thomas Jefferson -- founding father, farmer,
architect, inventor, slaveholder, book
collector, scholar, diplomat, third president of
the United States and father of the Library of
Congress -- has been extended through Nov. 16.
It is on view in the Northwest Gallery and
Pavilion of the Jefferson Building, 10 First
Street S.E., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
Monday-Saturday.

A highlight of the exhibition is Jefferson's
library -- the 6,487 books that he sold to
Congress in 1815 to replace the volumes that
were burned in the U.S. Capitol during the War
of 1812. Never before on public view, the
library will remain open to visitors in the
Northwest Pavilion of the Jefferson Building
through the summer of 2001. Plans are under way
for a permanent display of these volumes from
Jefferson's library, the seed from which the
current Library of Congress grew.

Throughout this Bicentennial year, spurred by a
generous gift by Jerry and Gene Jones as a "Gift
to the Nation," the Library of Congress has been
reassembling original editions that were in
Jefferson's library when he sold it to Congress.
Many of those books were lost in an 1851 fire in
the Capitol, but, thanks to generous donors, the
library is now more than 90 percent complete.